Sioux Falls will receive $135,000 in federal money as part of $1.2 million in grants for South Dakota agencies to help people understand the new Internet marketplace for buying health insurance.

The local grant goes to the Falls Community Health Center, a downtown clinic that serves low-income and under-insured patients. The city health department, which operates the clinic, will use the money to hire two workers and pay for outreach costs to help people buy insurance at an online exchange to open in October.

“We’ll show them not only how to use the website, but to walk them through all the products so they can make an educated choice,” said Alicia Collura, assistant city director of public health.

The federal grants come in two waves.

The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration is sending $577,860 to community health centers in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Fort Pierre, Howard, Isabel and Alcester-Elk Point. Those centers will work with other agencies to publicize the insurance exchanges and will hire specialists called certified application counselors to assist in online purchasing. It is one-time money.

The government announced a second set of grants Thursday to pay two South Dakota agencies $600,000 to serve as navigators for the insurance sign-up. South Dakota Community Action Partnership will receive $336,000. It is a nonprofit with outlets in Madison, Sisseton, Lake Andes and Rapid City. The other $264,000 goes to the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board in Rapid City.

The two programs are separate but parallel efforts that should complement each other, said Cindy Dannenbring, executive director of the Inter-Lakes Community Action in Madison.

“There are lot of uninsured people in South Dakota. We want to reach out to as many of them as we can,” she said.

The navigator program requires about 20 hours of online training and would work for the specific agencies named Thursday. The counselor program is open to a wider group, some of whom could be doing it on their own or paid by the community health centers.

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The effort in South Dakota is part of a national education and publicity blitz to sign up millions of Americans for health insurance as required by the Affordable Care Act. Most South Dakotans have insurance already, through individual or group policies, Medicare or Medicaid, but more than 70,000 do not.

“The goal is to reach folks who haven’t had insurance, who don’t know about insurance and the options they’ll have in the marketplace. It’s a tough challenge. It’s an outreach endeavor. We have to go find those people,” said Linda Ross, CEO of the Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas. Her association, which includes the six community centers, is receiving another $144,000 in federal money to coordinate the startup in North and South Dakota.

Enrollment at the online exchange will last six months, from Oct. 1 through March 31. The deadline to have coverage is Jan. 1, although those enrolled by the end of March will be able to avoid the penalty the law imposes on individuals who do not comply, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“I do not believe everyone will sign up from October to December,” Ross said from Sioux Falls. “Some folks are going to say, ‘I don’t really like it and am not going to do it.’ Others don’t know about it. It’ll be a continual process.”

Collura said the grant money in Sioux Falls will pay for the two new staff members and expenses including wireless equipment, computer printing, publicity and translation services. About 20 percent of the clinic’s patients do not speak English.

One of the new hires will work at the clinic at 521 N. Main Ave. and its satellites at Hawthorne, Terry Redlin and Hayward elementary schools. The other will work in outreach. They will earn $16 to $17 an hour. The clinic also will work with the 211 helpline and the county human services office.

The Falls clinic serves patients who pay on a sliding scale according to income. About 53 percent of them have no insurance. Those without coverage will be offered a chance to discuss their situation with a counselor who would explain how the exchange works, but the counseling will be optional and have no bearing on eligibility to receive care.

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“There could be a portion of them that will buy it and another portion of them that will not be able to afford it. I see both scenarios,” Collura said.

In Howard, the Horizon Health Care Center will use its $111,000 to promote the exchange in its service area across a swath of South Dakota from Bryant to Martin. The center, which has 13 satellite clinics, has about 30,000 patients making 75,000 to 80,000 visits a year, said CEO John Mengenhausen. He estimated that his agency could help 3,000 of them buy coverage.

Mengenhausen said he is among many wondering if and how the massive sign-up will work. The effort is to reach the uninsured, but the exchanges also will be open to anyone interested in changing coverage.

“We see a lot of people come through with catastrophic insurance and a $5,000 deductible,” he said.

Most buyers on the exchange will be eligible for subsidies covering part of the cost.

Dannenbring said Inter-Lakes, with its home office in Madison, has staff members in 14 counties who will “know the best way to spread the word about the marketplace.” She expects to use existing staff members, rather than hiring, but probably will increasing some workers’ hours.

Tinka Duran, a staff member at Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, said the agency will work with nine South Dakota tribes and several agencies including urban health centers.

She quoted Census Bureau figures to indicate coverage gaps for tribal members. The total Native American population is 82,000 in South Dakota, and 41,000 of them do not have coverage, she said.

That would represent a sizable segment of the total uninsured pool. State officials quote the total number of uninsured in South Dakota as 71,000, citing a survey in 2011 by Market Decisions. The Census Bureau says it is 92,000.

The Affordable Care Act exempts tribal members from the individual mandate and any penalties for not buying insurance, but the tribes still wish to increase coverage, Duran said.